Receive an SMS

Plivo supports receiving SMS text messages in 19 countries (see complete SMS API coverage). When an SMS is sent to a Plivo phone number, you can receive the text on your server by setting a Message URL in your Plivo app. Plivo will send the message along with other parameters to your Message URL.

Prerequisites

Check out our server-side SDKs page and install the right helper based on the programming language you want to use.

Buy a Plivo phone number. A phone number is required to receive and reply to SMS text messages. You can buy a Plivo phone number in over 19 countries through the Buy Numbers tab on your Plivo account UI. Check the SMS API coverage page for all the supported countries.

Use a web hosting service to host your web application. There are many inexpensive cloud hosting providers that you can use for just a few dollars a month. Follow the instructions of your hosting provider to host your web application.

Note: If you are using a Plivo Trial account for this example, you can only send sms to phone numbers that have been verified with Plivo. Phone numbers can be verified at the Sandbox Numbers page.

Set up a Web Server

Let’s assume your web server is located at http://example.com. Below is a snippet to set up a route on your webserver. Now when we send an HTTP request to http://example.com/receive_sms this route will be invoked.

Note: For PHP, the route will be example.com/receive_sms.php.

Copy the relevant code below into a text file and save it. Lets call it receive_sms.

Note: Make sure to use the appropriate file extention for your code (e.g., `receive_sms.py` for Python).

Next you will now have to configure this URL in your Plivo application.

Create an Application

Give your application a name. Lets call it Receive SMS. Enter your server URL (e.g. http://example.com/receive_sms) in the Message URL field and set the method as POST. See our Application API docs to learn how to modify your application through our APIs.

Click on Create to save your application.

Assign a Plivo number to your app

Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this app.

Select Receive SMS (name of the app) from the Plivo App dropdown list.

Click on Update to save.

If you don’t have a number, go to the Buy Number page to purchase a Plivo phone number.

Test it out

Send an SMS to your Plivo number using a regular mobile phone. Plivo will send a request to your Message URL with the parameters listed in the XML Request - Messages Documentation.